A Better Alternative to WordPress?

Most people with any sort of digital experience or knowledge have heard of WordPress, the open-source blogging platform. It’s free, fairly easy to use and there are plenty of options for templates and plugins. The question we should be asking ourselves is “Are there any better options out there?” In our opinion, the answer is Craft, and here’s why.

Web Development

CustomizationWordPress was created to be a blog platform that allows users to get up and running quickly. This is great for those that want to start a blog but can be problematic for those looking to get deep into the customization of a new website. Craft was created using a different approach, where instead of the platform being built to run, developers build upon it. This gives developers more freedom to customize aspects of the website without having to work around pieces that have already been built and installed. Building upon a simplified platform saves time and money over trying to manipulate an existing platform.

Security & UpdatesAs stated earlier, Wordpress is widely known about and used across the globe. For this reason, WordPress websites tend to be targets to hackers. WordPress does do a good job with consistently offering updates to the platform, which decreases the amount of potential security threats. Problems can arise from these updates, though. 3rd party plugins and even custom themes aren’t always maintained and/or updated along with the WordPress platform itself. This can cause issues with compatibility between the plugins / themes and the newly updated WordPress version. Craft websites tend to be much less reliant on third party applications so these types of issues can be avoided.

A Better CMS ExperienceAlthough WordPress is fairly easy to use, Craft can be designed and streamlined so it’s more user-friendly. One example would be how the sections of each page can be organized with tabs, allowing for user focus to solely be placed on creating and maintaining content. The Matrix Field also allows users to easily drag and reorder sections within a page and developers can control the markup to keep the displayed sections consistent without breaking the design. Craft is a much newer CMS and was created with today’s website technology in mind while Wordpress was created over a decade ago and still has parts from that time period built in.

Less Maintenance CostsWith Craft being such a solid, simplified and customizable platform, a lot less money and time is spent on fixing issues and problems. Less problems also mean less time the website is down or broken. Craft also allows developers more freedom to build so less time and money needs to be spent on manipulating an existing platform.

By no means is WordPress a bad platform. It’s used by millions of people across the globe and serves them quite well. WordPress is just not a true CMS - it’s still a blogging platform. For those looking for a true CMS that’s customizable and easy to build upon, Craft is the obvious choice for the future of your new website. Looking to upgrade your website? Our expert developers can help. Reach out to us and see what we can do for you.

Joe Bencar

Feb 02, 2018

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